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This weekend, major trials will begin on a cocktail of antibodies that scientists hope will protect people from Covid-19 and could quickly be used in nursing homes or on cruise ships in the event of an epidemic.
A UK volunteer will be given the first dose of a drug that is expected to provide immediate protection for vulnerable people. The blow to the arm muscle takes effect immediately and can last anywhere from six months to a year. If it works as predicted by scientists, it could be used to protect those who cannot be given the vaccines due to their health.
The drug, which is entering large-scale phase 3 trials in the UK, is manufactured by AstraZeneca, the same pharmaceutical company that partnered with the University of Oxford to develop a vaccine. The Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine is the UK government’s biggest hope for a mass vaccination campaign next year. The UK has pre-ordered 100 million doses but, unlike Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna’s rival vaccination tests, the company has yet to publish any efficacy results.
Asked whether the vaccine will be ready for use by the end of 2020, Sir Mene Pangalos, executive vice president of biopharmaceutical research and development at AstraZeneca, said: “We are on track to have more data before the end of the year. or before Christmas. I think we still hope to be able to dose, if we prove that the vaccine is safe and effective, towards the end of the year. “
Pangalos said the antibody drug would be almost like a passive vaccination. “This is important because obviously there will be a significant number of people even in a world where vaccines are highly effective who will not respond to vaccines, or in fact will not take them and therefore have monoclonal antibodies as potential therapies I think is also important.”
Monoclonal antibodies are produced in the laboratory and can improve the immune system’s response to an invading virus. The Phase 3 trial to be launched over the weekend will recruit 5,000 patients worldwide to evaluate the safety and efficacy of long-acting antibodies. There will be nine sites in the UK with 1,000 patients, half of which will have the trial drug and the other half a placebo.
The UK study will check whether the drug is protective for people without Covid infection. Subsequent tests will try to see if it can help in an outbreak in a nursing home, before anyone knows if they are infected. It will also be tested at a later stage as a treatment in early-stage Covid disease.
Kate Bingham, head of the UK vaccine task force, said the drug “is part of our portfolio to protect the whole of the UK”. The UK has a tentative order for 1 million doses.
Vaccines typically take six weeks to work and this would protect people immediately.
“Vaccines work in people who have functional immune systems and if you are immunosuppressed and are going through bone marrow transplants or treatments that actually reduce your ability to activate an immune response, then this is basically the only current way of providing passive immunity. in the short term, “he said.
However, the cost is high. Two companies, Regeneron and Eli Lilly, which have produced antibody cocktails to treat people in hospitals, have set their prices from $ 600 (£ 451) to $ 1,000 per dose. The number of people who would be given the antibody cocktail instead of a vaccine was relatively small, Pangalos said. “That’s millions of doses, against billions,” he said.
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